L’eccezionale rivestimento bugnato della chiesa di Santa Croce a Viterbo “rinnovata” nel 1371 dal Tesoriere Angelo Tavernini

Abstract

The Church of Santa Croce – whose existence is attested by documents from 1073 and 1084 – is one of the first religious
buildings in Viterbo constructed outside the ancient Etruscan-Roman residential core. It is connected by a bridge to the
surrounding territory, already the site of settlements, both near the ancient “Roman” road (a secondary route of the ancient Via
Cassia) and along the road leading to the Lombard settlement of the Castle of Sonsa. Near the intersection of these two routes
is located the “hall” church dedicated to the Holy Cross, about which the documents remain silent for a century and a half, then
resume in subsequent centuries. In 1228, an act sub porticu of the church was drawn up, which, along with other documents,
mentions it as a parish with rectory. Finally, an Chronicler recalls that in 1371 “fu fornita la chiesa de Sancta Croce” by Angelo
Tavernini, Treasurer of the Patrimony of St. Peter in Tuscia until 1376. Tavernini’s intervention is documented by his coat of
arms embedded in the rusticated facing that envelops the external walls of the primitive church, which was enclosed by a wall
with flat peperino rusticated blocks with beveled edges. On the north wall, there is a solution taken from Roman triumphal
arches, where the cornice – which runs along the three walls and divides the two orders of rustication – protrudes at the semicolumns
with capitals. Above the three walls covered with rusticated blocks of the church – which in the seventeenth century
was incorporated into the Jesuit complex and reduced to secular use – two floors of housing were constructed.

Keywords : Viterbo, Middle Ages, churces, architecture, Tavernini.